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Delton ChildsFlag for United States of America

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Service "nameserver" appears to be down

Every now and then I get these notifications from cPanel that my nameserver has failed.  this is stressing me out.  How can i fix these issues?

Using GoDaddy VPS with WHM

** This is my first VPS... I'm comfy with apache, command line but am a freshman.  Eager to learn!

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Daniel McAllister
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So the term "nameserver" in this case is referring to a DNS service.... and from the info you provided, it appears your Linux server is having issues with BIND (one of the original DNS server packages).

So before I go further, since you're a "freshman" let me relate that there are TWO distinct parts of being a DNS server (yes, there are technically others -- but for this discussion, we're just looking at the 2 main kinds of DNS services):

 FIRST: There is the kind of server (called an authoritative server) that will resolve a set of specific names to their IP addresses. When you register a new domain name, you have to specify where your authoritative name servers will be, and by default, that is usually with your registrar. Their authoritative nameservers are usually sufficient, unless you have some need or desire to host your own. (For example, many companies have their own to handle their own private "internal" domains -- like Active Directory domains). When an Authoritative Server receives a request for a domain that it is not authoritative for itself, it usually returns an error message (usually because there are advanced settings that can alter this). The settings for which Authoritative DNS servers are used for your domain are in DNS itself -- part of your registration.

  SECOND: There is the kind of server (called a "resolving" or "recursing" server) that accepts a request from a user, and then uses the Global DNS to resolve that name into its IP address (that is, it LOCATES the authoritative server for the client's given domain name, and gives the client the result from that authoritative server). These nameservers are usually provided by your ISP (that is, the company that is giving the client system an IP address on the Internet). Again, you can host your own, but there is not always a good reason to do so. The settings for your recursing name server are in your own system (in many cases, they are set via DHCP).

I'm going to write the rest of this based on the assumption that your BIND is a resolving (or in BIND's vernacular: caching-only) nameserver.

So FIRST, before exploring how to "fix" this, let me re-state that you don't HAVE to run a DNS service (of either kind) yourself (on your web server) at all -- you can use your registrar's authoritative service, and your hosting provider's recursor.

The issue for you then seems to be that your BIND (named) service seems to be stopping... but depending upon your configuration, that may not actually be true. (The named service often runs in a chroot environment, in which case it can appear "dead" even though it is not).

So that seems to leave you with 3 options:
 1) You are running BIND (named) and you don't need to (or want to at this point) so you just want to get it out and use a GoDaddy (VPS provider) recursor, or
 2) You are running BIND (named) and you THINK it's failing but you don't know for sure, and you want to see if it is actually failing, and either way, make the messages stop, or
 3) You are running BIND (named) and you already know you want to replace it with something else (there are lots of other alternatives -- my preference is for PowerDNS).

Write back and let me know which option you want to explore... it's too much to put into a single response

Dan
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I would like my configuration to be as simple as possible.  This server is only used for web hosting & just standard CMS as well, like wordpress & opencart.  

I did find this GoDaddy VPS help doc:  Update BIND on your linux server

I need to explore option two!  I think it's failing but I don't know for sure.  All my sites seem to up but I know the system restarts.  It's intermittent as well.  I haven't received a notification in a week now.  Please let me know what you think is best!

note: it was not my intention to "neglect this thread"!  :S
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Daniel McAllister
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